The purpose of the study is to observe the impact of policy intervention on financial sustainability using the structural vector autoregression analysis. The population of the study is the manufacturing sector of Pakistan, which is an emerging economy. Data for 249 firms operating in the manufacturing sector are taken, collected from Datastream from 2005 to 2019, with total observations of 2,400. To conduct the analysis, R software is used for its better visualization. Results show that firm performance, corporate governance, and (...) sectoral policies have a positive and long-term impact on financial sustainability, whereas earning management and financialization not only have a negative impact, but this impact affects the operations of the corporate for a longer period. This study would be helpful for policymakers as it gives a framework for financial sustainability based on the policies and strategies developed by the sector. (shrink)

The regulation of narcotic medications used in narcotic addiction treatment is unique in medical therapeutics. Physicians who want to use narcotics for this indication must obtain a separate annual registration from the Drug Enforcement Administration. Annual registration is contingent on compliance with both the DEA's security regulations as well as treatment regulations jointly promulgated by the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.During the last decade, a number of events have occurred that persuaded NIDA that (...) it is time to reevaluate the current method by which the Department of Health and Human Services regulates methadone treatment. As a result of research during the past twenty years, we have learned about the effective components of methadone treatment. In comparison to other available treatment modalities for opioid addiction, methadone treatment is uniquely effective when administered by well-trained medical staffs. (shrink)

The regulation of narcotic medications used in narcotic addiction treatment is unique in medical therapeutics. Physicians who want to use narcotics for this indication must obtain a separate annual registration from the Drug Enforcement Administration. Annual registration is contingent on compliance with both the DEA's security regulations as well as treatment regulations jointly promulgated by the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.During the last decade, a number of events have occurred that persuaded NIDA that (...) it is time to reevaluate the current method by which the Department of Health and Human Services regulates methadone treatment. As a result of research during the past twenty years, we have learned about the effective components of methadone treatment. In comparison to other available treatment modalities for opioid addiction, methadone treatment is uniquely effective when administered by well-trained medical staffs. (shrink)

In this book, the author shows that it is necessary to enrich the conceptual frame of the theory of rational choice beyond consequentialism. He argues that consequentialism as a general theory of rational action fails and that this does not force us into the dichotomy teleology vs deontology. The unity of practical reason can be saved without consequentialism. In the process, he presents insightful criticism of standard models of action and rational choice. This will help readers discover a new perspective (...) on the theory of rationality. The approach is radical: It transcends the reductive narrowness of instrumental rationality without denying its practical impact. Actions do exist that are outlined in accordance to utility maximizing or even self-interest maximizing. Yet, not all actions are to be understood in these terms. Actions oriented around social roles, for example, cannot count as irrational only because there is no known underlying maximizing heuristic. The concept of bounded rationality tries to embed instrumental rationality into a form of life to highlight limits of our cognitive capabilities and selective perceptions. However, the agent is still left within the realm of cost-benefit-reasoning. The idea of social preferences or meta-preferences cannot encompass the plurality of human actions. According to the author they ignore the plurality of reasons that drive agency. Hence, they coerce agency in fitting into a theory that undermines humanity. His theory of structural rationality acknowledges lifeworld patterns of interaction and meaning. (shrink)

”Der ökonomische Markt ist nicht moralfrei“, sagt der angesehene Philosoph Julian Nida-Rümelin und präsentiert sein Modell einer humanen Ökonomie. Er glaubt an eine gut funktionierende Wirtschaftsordnung, die menschengerecht und nachhaltig ausgerichtet ist. Dabei sieht er darin keineswegs eine Utopie, sondern vielmehr eine praktikable Form, die unseren Alltag positiv verändern kann. Dieses Buch richtet sich an diejenigen, die über den Tag hinausdenken wollen, die über die Kritik an dem einen oder anderen gravierenden Fehlverhalten ökonomischer Akteure hinaus eine ethische Perspektive gewinnen (...) wollen, die sich Gedanken machen, wie eine auf Kooperation und moralischen Werten basierende Wirtschaftsordnung in der Weltgesellschaft aussehen könnte. (shrink)

The paradoxes and dilemmas of social choice theory can be taken as an argument against a certain view of democracy: For the identity theory democracy represents a collective actor standing for aggregated individual interests. According to a second model of society, democracy has its normative basis in structural traits of interaction and cooperation. Within the formal theory of politics both the Arrow-Theorem and the Liberal Paradox undermine the identity theory and give us reasons for the second, the normative theory which (...) takes democracy as being constituted by structural rules. (shrink)

Philosophie ist der Versuch, durch überzeugendes und durchsichtiges Argumentieren bestimmte Fragen zu lösen. Philosophische Grundthemen sind Fragen nach dem Verständnis der Welt im Ganzen und unserer Stellung in ihr. Diese Fragen können prinzipiell nur kontrovers beantwortet werden. Die Reihe Grundthemen Philosophie möchte der Diskussion solcher philosophischen Grundthemen einen Ort geben. Anstelle einer umfassenden einführenden Darstellung werden in den einzelnen Bänden in Auseinandersetzung mit ausgewählten historischen Positionen die jeweiligen Probleme analysiert und Lösungsmöglichkeiten diskutiert. Dabei setzt der Verfasser/die Verfasserin eigene Akzente und (...) bezieht Stellung, so dass sich nicht bloß ein Blick auf die Geschichte der Philosophie, sondern zugleich auch ein systematischer Beitrag zur Problemdiskussion ergibt. Zur Zeit sind weitere Bände zu den Themen Beziehungen, Kultur, Wissenschaft und Moralbegründung geplant. Die Bände der Reihe richten sich gleichermaßen an Studierende der Philosophie und anderer Fächer sowie an professionelle Philosophen. Außerdem wendet sich die Reihe an alle, die an Grundthemen der Philosophie interessiert sind. (shrink)

During the last decade, children have shown an increasing need for mental wellbeing interventions due to their anxiety and depression issues, which the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated. Socially Assistive Robotics have been shown to have a great potential to support children with mental wellbeing-related issues. However, understanding how robots can be used to aid the measurement of these issues is still an open challenge. This paper presents a narrative review of child-robot interaction (cHRI) papers (IEEE ROMAN proceedings from 2016–2021 and (...) keyword-based article search using Google Scholar) to investigate the open challenges and potential knowledge gaps in the evaluation of mental wellbeing or the assessment of factors affecting mental wellbeing in children. We exploited the SPIDER framework to search for the key elements for the inclusion of relevant studies. Findings from this work (10 screened papers in total) investigate the challenges in cHRI studies about mental wellbeing by categorising the current research in terms of robot-related factors (robot autonomy and type of robot), protocol-related factors (experiment purpose, tasks, participants and user sensing) and data related factors (analysis and findings). The main contribution of this work is to highlight the potential opportunities for cHRI researchers to carry out measurements concerning children’s mental wellbeing. (shrink)

Pervasive usage and the development of social media networks have provided the platform for the fake news to spread fast among people. Fake news often misleads people and creates wrong society perceptions. The spread of low-quality news in social media has negatively affected individuals and society. In this study, we proposed an ensemble-based deep learning model to classify news as fake or real using LIAR dataset. Due to the nature of the dataset attributes, two deep learning models were used. For (...) the textual attribute “statement,” Bi-LSTM-GRU-dense deep learning model was used, while for the remaining attributes, dense deep learning model was used. Experimental results showed that the proposed study achieved an accuracy of 0.898, recall of 0.916, precision of 0.913, and F-score of 0.914, respectively, using only statement attribute. Moreover, the outcome of the proposed models is remarkable when compared with that of the previous studies for fake news detection using LIAR dataset. (shrink)

The rational choice paradigm has proved to be a fruitful means of analysis and explanation in various disciplines concerned with questions of practical rationality, but in various attempts to extend its fields of application the deficiencies of the original account of rational choice have become evident. This paper tries to give a systematic overview of ways in which the rational choice paradigm can be extended and modified.

The paradoxes and dilemmas of social choice theory can be taken as an argument against a certain view of democracy: For the identity theory democracy represents a collective actor standing for aggregated individual interests. According to a second model of society, democracy has its normative basis in structural traits of interaction and cooperation. Within the formal theory of politics both the Arrow-Theorem and the Liberal Paradox undermine the identity theory and give us reasons for the second, the normative theory which (...) takes democracy as being constituted by structural rules. (shrink)

Sowohl die wissenschaftliche als auch die lebensweltliche Praxis sind ohne den Austausch von Gründen nicht denkbar, und dennoch ist notorisch unklar, was man unter Gründen eigentlich verstehen sollte: Was ist ihr ontologischer und erkenntnistheoretischer Status? Sind sie objektiv oder subjektiv? In welchem Verhältnis stehen praktische und theoretische Gründe zueinander? Was können Gründe überhaupt leisten? Die in diesem Band versammelten Kongressbeiträge untersuchen das Thema »Gründe« aus den unterschiedlichen Perspektiven der verschiedenen Strömungen der zeitgenössischen Philosophie. Dieser Pluralismus spiegelt sich auch in den (...) Hauptvorträgen wider, für die Seyla Benhabib, Lorraine Daston, Peter Gärdenfors, Jürgen Habermas, Franz von Kutschera, Susan Neiman und Robert Pippin gewonnen werden konnten. (shrink)

Various leadership styles have been widely studied to understand success. However, little research has empirically explored how entrepreneurial leadership influences entrepreneurial success. Moreover, the role of knowledge management processes and knowledge entrepreneurship have been overlooked. Thus, using a knowledge-based view theory, this study aims to determine the relationship between EL and ES, mediated through KMPs. In addition, for a better understanding, the study also used KE as a moderator. A quantitative survey method has been employed to collect data from 390 (...) entrepreneurial venture owners, co-founders, and managers in tech-oriented ventures operating in Pakistan. Smart partial least squares statistical software was used to analyze the impact mechanism of EL on ES through the structural equation model. The findings revealed that EL style positively influences ES. In addition, KMPs fully mediate the relationship between EL and ES. Furthermore, KE as a moderator, strengthens the relationships between EL and the knowledge management process. Theoretically, this study has complemented and enriched research on the influence mechanism between EL and ES. Practically, this study has important implications for leaders, managers, and founders to promote KMPs to achieve ES. (shrink)

Demokratien geraten zunehmend unter Druck. Dabei wird die Bedeutung von Demokratie selbst zum Gegenstand der Auseinandersetzung. Diese Auseinandersetzungen nimmt der vorliegende Band zum Anlass, die Bedeutung von Demokratie grundsätzlich zu untersuchen. Mit dem Begriff der Konstituenzien sind dabei jene wesentlichen Bedingungen gemeint, die Demokratie ausmachen. Die meisten dieser Bedingungen sind normativ. Was Demokratie ist, wird auch und gerade dadurch bestimmt, was Demokratie sein sollte. Damit geht es um jene Normen, deren Verwirklichung politische Praktiken zu demokratischen Praktiken macht. Sind diese Normen (...) nur eingeschränkt verwirklicht, mindert sich der demokratische Gehalt von Politik. Inwieweit ist dann nun aber eigentlich der Fall? Und was können wir dagegen tun? Antworten auf diese Fragen geben einschlägige Vertreterinnen und Vertreter aus Philosophie, Politik- und Rechtswissenschaft. (shrink)

Edmund Burke’s speeches and writings during the trial of Warren Hastings—from 1788 to 1795—remain one of the most comprehensive assessments of the effects of colonial trade and territorial expansion on Britain’s nationalist self. A rhetorical reading of his prosecution speeches reveals how they affected the public response to the trial by evoking the sublime and framing terror as the basic feature of Britain’s mercantile imperialist agenda in the colonies. Moreover, by associating Hastings’s governance of Bengal with sublime terror, Burke altered (...) the interpretations of virtue and corruption, thus distancing both Britain and India from the rampant profiteering of the East India Company. Burke’s critique of the degenerative influences of commercial imperialism along with the reformulation of his ideas in subsequent colonial historiography is crucial for assessing how the aesthetics of the sublime conferred greater moral force to the sporadic and fragmented reports about the Company’s abuses of power in India. (shrink)

The study is based on validating and exploring the effects of a mega project plan on infrastructure development and Sustainable Project Management. The CPEC has great importance to infrastructure development and economy-boosting. The current study's primary aim is to deal with environmental protection, economic boost up, international relations influencing to the Project's success. The paper also addressed project management as a moderator between environmental protection, economic boost up, international relations, and the CPEC project's success. The primary data has been gathered (...) by using questionnaires, and PLS-SEM has been employed for the analysis. The results revealed that environmental protection, economy boost up, and international relations have a positive association with the success of CPEC. The outcomes also exposed that project management moderating among the nexus of economy boosts up the international relations and success of CPEC. The present study results guided how Pakistan and China make the CPEC project stronger with the efficient implementation of practices required for protecting the environment, with the economic growth and boost up, and good strong relations with foreign countries. This study was an attempt to validate the different factors to check their association with each other in a new environment, resulting in a leading edge for the success of mega projects that influence project management. (shrink)

Universities are specialized units aimed to deliver quality education and shaping future leadership to provide competent professionals to the industry. The establishment of ORIC in universities and significant increase in academia-industry linkage activities is strategic move towards achievement of the mentioned objectives. Bridging up the gap between academia and industry by adopting such strategies defines the successful role of HEIs. In view of increasing number of universities and continuous outflow of graduates it seems imperative to analyze and capitalize their potential (...) towards the growth of economy. However, the unemployment ratio and limited growth in SME sector reflect the insignificant absorption of graduates in corporate sector. The study aims to determine the factors that serve as barriers in achieving goals of HEIs by understanding the problems faced by university students in general and business graduates in particular on the basis of data gathered from 100 students from different universities present in Karachi. It shall also assists the policy makers in devising policy as per market demands, level of quality attained by universities, their involvement with corporate sector and in turn need of the industry to keep both parties at par in the fluctuating and contemporary era. (shrink)

Present study compared disturbed eating attitudes among male and female university students. For which it as postulated that female university students would have more disturbed eating attitudes as compare to male students. For that reason 200 males and 200 female university students from various universities of Karachi were incorporated in the study. Their age ranged from 19 to 25. Participants after verbal and written covenantfrom the heads of their institution were asked to fill the respondents’ profile form to gather the (...) participant’s demographic information, followed by Eating Attitude Test which was used to know ones disturbed eating ways. For statistical evaluation t-test was applied, which specified that male university students experience more disturbed eating attitudes compare to female learners. This clears that distressed eating attempts are not limited to females, but is now affecting males as well. Thus to avert its budding prevalence, teaching institutions should supervise its amassed risks in their students and stimulate them to healthy lines of eating. (shrink)

During the last two decades social choice theory has become an established branch of the social sciences. But in spite of its contributions on a high level of precision by logical and mathematical means the theory is still vague regarding the interpretation of its basic concepts. In this article I try to cope with that problem by distinguishing three different areas of application of social choice theory. The concept of ‘we-intention’ in the sense of Tuomela is examined in this context.

Advance Care Planning, of which Advance directive is only a part, is a process of planning for future medical care under circumstances of impaired decisional capacity. Advance care planning involves a structured discussion between patient and ideally their primary care physician to explore the goals of care in the context of current and hypothetical illness states, discusses treatment options in the context of these goals of care and finally articulates and docu- ments treatment and care preferences of the patient.1 Advance (...) care planning should be a routine part of preventive health care in order to avoid unneces- sary extra ordinary measures against a person’s wishes and to reserve resources which are wasted in futile care. Instead advance care planning is either non-existent or severely under-utilized in primary care practice in Pakistan. The author explores the factors that prevent Pakistani physicians’ from incorporating advance care planning into practice. In addition to this, various steps in terms of the principles, policies and procedures are discussed which could help physicians and institutions navigate the advance care planning process. (shrink)

In the following I try to show that there is an attractive notion of citizenship which is independent of any kind of collective identity. Citizenship is understood as one form of social interaction. It is argued that in order to understand social interaction adequately, it is necessary to introduce a structural theory of practical rationality, to the extent this conception of citizenship is based on the theory of structural rationality.

This article is an outline of the current issue of Filosofija.Sociologija, thematically divided into five sections. Starting from the most abstract thematically one and going down to reflections on actualities. Here I try to give it a meaningful structure and a flavour of a general Zeitgeist residing now in our contemporary academia.

A number of companies including Google and BMW are currently working on the development of autonomous cars. But if fully autonomous cars are going to drive on our roads, it must be decided who is to be held responsible in case of accidents. This involves not only legal questions, but also moral ones. The first question discussed is whether we should try to design the tort liability for car manufacturers in a way that will help along the development and improvement (...) of autonomous vehicles. In particular, Patrick Lin’s concern that any security gain derived from the introduction of autonomous cars would constitute a trade-off in human lives will be addressed. The second question is whether it would be morally permissible to impose liability on the user based on a duty to pay attention to the road and traffic and to intervene when necessary to avoid accidents. Doubts about the moral legitimacy of such a scheme are based on the notion that it is a form of defamation if a person is held to blame for causing the death of another by his inattention if he never had a real chance to intervene. Therefore, the legitimacy of such an approach would depend on the user having an actual chance to do so. The last option discussed in this paper is a system in which a person using an autonomous vehicle has no duty of interfering, but is still held responsible for possible accidents. Two ways of doing so are discussed, but only one is judged morally feasible. (shrink)

"Williams's masterful translation satisfies (at last!) a long-standing need. There are lots of good translations of Augustine's great work, but until now we have been forced to choose between those that strive to replicate in English something of the majesty and beauty of Augustine's Latin style and those that opt instead to convey the careful precision of his philosophical terminology and argumentation. Finally, Williams has succeeded in capturing both sides of Augustine's mind in a richly evocative, impeccably reliable, elegantly readable (...) presentation of one of the most impressive achievements in Western thought--Augustine's Confessions." --Scott MacDonald, Professor of Philosophy and Norma K. Regan Professor in Christian Studies, Cornell University. (shrink)